A human value

I was in a hurry to meet with one of my close Indian friends whom I had not seen for long. As I rode across the street with heavy traffic jam and immensely crowded, vehicles in front of me stopped suddenly. Sounds of engines turned down and another noise came up. I stood up from my scooter’s seat to see what was going on over the place which caused the termination of road traffic. Siren and its flashing light on the top of police car were visible over dozens of vehicles and hundreds of people. In front of them many followers of Hinduism were carrying a richly decorated, huge, shining statue of elephant-headed Hindu God – Ganesha. Such religious or spiritual activities are held numerous times in India and it seemed as an ordinary state of events to me.

Despite the traffic jam, I tried to push my scooter using handlebars towards the cult through narrow spaces among cars and motor rickshaws, traditional Indian autos, to watch the actions of them which were likely to be interesting to explore, as usual.

As I came closer, I saw another small subsidiary group who were carrying an artificial, sized as half of my body, young golden-colored heifer on their shoulders. That shows how the Hinduism teaches its followers to respect and honor animals and living creations of God. Moreover, it was known to me that cow is a holy animal according to the view of Hinduism.

The crowd was leaded by bearded Sadhus, religious ascetics, who were wearing saffron-colored clothes. Red and yellow mark lines named “Tilak” were painted on their forehead which indicated the pious men’s sectarian affiliation. Behind Sadhus, a musical band of five men was following and playing various typical Indian traditional musical instruments as well. Some people were dancing rhythmically. It was not difficult to see the happiness on everybody’s face.

Police officers were keeping the road closed till they shift to the other street crossed with the current one. Once the movement on the road was allowed, the engines were turned on and the traffic “reanimated”. When I arrived in the same place where the people were enjoying their moment I saw that a poor thin man, who was wearing a ragged dirty clothes, was lying in turbid smelly water on the side of the road. Unfortunately, nobody paid attention to him and passed by his weak body negligently. I fell into a long thread of thoughts about human value, comparing the poor man to those statues which I had seen recently…